I grew up in a home without any art on the walls. I remember a couple of smallish “pictures” my parents had hung on the walls to break the monotony, but they had no significance artistically or even sentimentally.
Until my second year of college I had no background or education in the arts, but that year I took a 5 unit course in the history of art using Anthony F. Janson’s History of Art as a text. Janson’s book is the Bible of art history. The original was published in 1913 and it’s been revised regularly ever since. I have the 1995 Fifth Edition in my bookcase now. The illustrations and reproductions introduced me to a new world. At the end of the course, having surveyed everything from the caves at Lascaux through Post-Impressionism, I bought my first art – a reproduction on Masonite of Gaugin’s Arearea. I loved the bold use of color and the simplicity of the figures.
